On politics in the Golden State

Friday won’t be a furlough day, governor’s office concedes

August 12, 2010 | 12:32
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State workers will have a regularly scheduled workday on Friday, the Schwarzenegger administration said in a memo on Thursday, after a judge earlier this week temporarily blocked the governor’s effort to impose unpaid furloughs.

Schwarzenegger had been seeking to get an appeals court to overturn the Alameda County Superior Court judge’s decision in time to furlough workers this Friday. The appeals court could rule Thursday afternoon.

But the memo from Schwarzenegger’s Department of Personnel Administration director Debbie Endsley said the “timing of any decision by the Court of Appeal effectively prevents” the state from obtaining a final decision from the state Supreme Court before Friday.

“We hope to have a decision … before the second scheduled furlough Friday,” Endsley wrote. That is currently scheduled for Aug. 20.

State employees have been whipsawed in recent weeks, from Schwarzenegger’s late July order to furlough them three times a month until a budget is in place to this week’s order by Judge Steven A. Brick blocking the furloughs.